Lexical Ambiguity and Ideology in Political Discourse: A Qualitative Analysis of Selected News Stories Covering Conflicts in the Middle East

Abstract

This research investigates how global and regional news organisations, particularly BBC, Al Jazeera, Arab News, and Gulf News, use lexical choices to construct ideological representations of Middle East political events. Anchored in Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and van Dijk’s ideological square and ideological strategies, this proposal examines lexical patterns such as nomination, predication, evaluative adjectives, metaphors, and strategic labelling that foreground or background specific actors, actions, and interpretations. A qualitative approach of analysis will focus on a corpus of political news articles published between 2023–2025 involving Gaza conflict, diplomacy, and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. The proposal aims to identify systematic ideological tendencies across Western, pan-Arab, and Gulf outlets, revealing how news language shapes our political perceptions and stances.